SOL's Blackhawk location was formerly BodyMax PT, which was a private practice owned by Dr. Craig Amack, who sold his clinic to SOL about a year or two ago while maintaining his role as director, before his retirement in early September of this year.
I've been seeing Dr. Craig on/off for a couple years in both his Pleasanton and Danville locations for various upper body muscular and joint issues. His practice was great, old-school, and manual-therapy intensive. During his time, he alleviated quite a lot of my chronic issues such as muscular strains from years ago, as well as my more recent shoulder issues. I learned a lot about recovery, Physical Therapy practices, treatments to request, and what makes a good PT over my 12 or so visits. I can say that he is the best PT out of many that I have encountered.
However, I wish I could say the same about Scott Watson, who was a PTA that I visited 3 times following Dr. Craig's retirement. In fact, out of the 6 DPT's/PTA's/Sports Med Practitioners that I have visited in both private and corporate clinics as well as in my university, I can say that Scott was one of the worst I have worked with. I had a shoulder strain a few weeks after Dr. Craig's retirement, that was the main issue Scott worked on. Scott pointed out the strain, but was unable to diagnose exactly what got strained, such as if it was a joint or muscular issue. He was only able to point out that I was weak on the O'Brien's shoulder test, which I already knew for a couple years due to an anterior labral tear I suffered in the past. Dr. Craig warned me before about some corporate PT practices, and Scott was definitely the type of PT he warned me about. Scott only performed joint mobilizations and rough chiropractic adjustments, which were cookie-cutter general shoulder injury treatments, without finding the root cause of issues. He didn't even ask me to take my shirt off to see my shoulder, so he couldn't and didn't palpate or examine my shoulder, much less work on and release any knots or scarring. This was a surprise since every PT I have visited has at least put their hand on and felt around my shoulder. He would also talk over you and dismiss any questions or concerns you have about your injuries when you discuss them. Most of his answers to my questions did not sound confident at all. In fact, I think a couple of Dr. Craigs PT Aides at his Pleasanton location who were college students were more knowledgable, reliable, and effective than Scott, who was a certified PT Assistant. After my third visit and final visit with him, he basically said that my shoulder is a non-issue because I had close to full range of motion, despite me having pain on the farther ranges of rotation, having clunkiness in shoulder movement, and pain when shrugging or raising my arm horizontally. I think it's more like he didn't know how to work on me or fix the root cause of problems like Craig or my other PTs did. Hope Scott gets better and is still able to learn given that he's been a PTA for over 10 years. I think all his patients deserve better, and I have been enjoying treatment somewhere else following my final visit here. read more